Data server systems, such as web servers, are often used to transmit information to users. For example, web sites on the World Wide Web utilize one or more data servers to distribute data associated with web pages. After receiving a request for a web page associated with a uniform resource locator (URL) or Internet address, the data servers transmits a hypertext markup language (HTML) files and its associated image files to the user sending the request.
The data transmitted by data server systems to users often has one or more static portions and one or more dynamic portions, where the dynamic portions change more frequently than the static portions. For example, a HTML file could have one or more portions that represent a stock ticker or links to news articles on other web sites. Since these portions change much more frequently than other portions of the HTML file, such as legal disclaimer language, indices of links to search engine sites, etc., they may be considered to be dynamic, while the other portions may be considered to be static. A major limitation of data server systems is that the entire HTML file, i.e. both the static and dynamic portions used to reproduce a set of information is transmitted each time the user requests a particular set of information, even if there is no or relatively little changed information. Sending the entire HTML file usually results in an increase in transmission time and/or a decrease in the available bandwidth.